Greenbelt diary (5)

Adrienne Chaplin had a go at defining art in her session exploring why we should bother with art. She did acknowledge the difficulties of definitions but suggested that what artists do is to make sense of the world as it appears and feels to us. So that good art teaches us to see, hear, sense and feel better; articulates the way we experience life as felt. Or, perhaps, as Richard Harries puts it in his introduction to Forms of Transcendence: The Art of Roger Wagner (a book I bought at the Festival and read in the queue for The Rising) "every work of art is a deeply felt response to life seen in a particular way."

The most interesting idea which Chaplin posited was that of the importance of touch. Touch, she suggested, is the foundation of the senses. Touch is the first and last sense for us in birth and death, sensations via our skin cannot be avoided or eradicated, and touch is the basis of many lingual metaphors such as tough, smooth, prickly, warm etc.

I saw the Cloud of Witness installation and Gethsemene data projection but wasn't impressed or moved by either. I enjoyed Meryl Doney's guided tour of the Visionaries exhibition where I caught up with Martin Wilson and heard a little about the photographic project he had worked on at this year's Festival to be shown at next years.

Martyn Joseph conversed and performed with three emerging and engaging artists in The Rising and then with poet and lyricist Stewart Henderson. Humourous and profound by turn and in tandem, this was a performance littered with lingual brilliance. At the end they took questions from the audience which led both to state why Greenbelt is so important to them. As for many who go, the combination of friendships, art, questions, and challenge make it 'church' for them (for a similar statement from a punter, click here for a post by Steve Lawson).

While waiting for Athlete I made what for me this year was a rare foray over to the Performance Cafe but was rewarded by a short but sweet set from Sister Jones. Their folk/r&b style was fused with gospel lyricism to great effect and in a seemingly effortless fashion.

Athlete played a great gig but are in need of some U2-style reinvention. The new album, Black Swan, has more light and shade than Beyond the Neighbourhood but both are locked into the anthemic template of the excellent Tourist without tapping into the originality of Vehicles and Animals. Maybe they need to take their own advice and make some magical mistakes. Despite this, they sent me home on a high with the sense that it will be alright and that hope is never light years away.

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Athlete - Black Swan Song.